Play Story Fest @ Remake Learning Days
A pilot of a ½ day salon of facilitated conversations around play, culture and community.
This pilot of Play Story Fest is planned to take place the Afternoon of May,11 at the MuseumLab at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh during the 2026 Remake Learning Days (date to be determined). We are hoping for around 20-25 participants to help pilot this concept.
The Fest will be ½ day starting around 12:30pm and going until 5:30pm. From around 1-5, there would be three conversation sessions, each around 45 minutes. There will be a short overview, and each session would have a short intro, and then conversation around the topic of the session. There will be breaks between each session, and round 5pm, the Fest would culminate with a hands-on activity creating art together, potentially with a reception.
Each session with have a facilitator to guide the conversation. The first session will focus on play in our lives. Next, a session on psychology and sociology perspectives on pop culture, media and games. For the final session, we’ll have a conversation on manifesting positive social impact through our lives.
Drew Davidson is a professor, producer and player of interactive media. His background spans academic, industry and professional worlds and he is interested in stories and transformational experiences across texts, comics, games and other media. Currently, he’s studying the value of play in our lives, supported by major industry and non-profit organizations, and the shared stories inspired him to found Play Story Press, an open community publishing consortium.
Amelia Herbst, PsyD is a clinical psychologist, author, and public speaker who thrives in the geek and gaming community. She believes our interests are important to our identity and encourages the use of gaming in therapy. Since starting therapeutic work in 2012 she has explored innovative techniques like using Dungeons and Dragons and other games to address social anxiety, and has helped designers integrate mental health and psychological themes into games.
After growing up poor and working for decades in shelters and halfway houses, non-profit leader Dana Gold created a board game to help people understand how families get ensnared in poverty and how difficult the struggle is to overcome structured inequity. The game, Broke, creates empathy for people who are poor by giving players the opportunity to experience the stress and frustration of making high stakes decisions with competing priorities and not enough income.
More Info Here: https://remakelearningdays.org/event/southwesternpa/play-story-fest/
Registration Here: https://secure.pittsburghkids.org/2574/2572